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A Word, Please: He or she may be happier with ‘they’

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Changes in language can come as unwelcome news. I get that. You spend years carefully following some usage rule you were taught is important — perhaps by using “literally” only in its strictest sense or never using “they” to mean “he or she” or, in my case, always putting the period before the closing quotation mark. Then one day you notice that nobody else follows your rule and it’s headed for the dustbin of history. It’s frustrating.

But sometimes change in language — even change that at first seems so very wrong — is a good thing. I mention this because I’m about to break some news that’s going to rankle some. But those who get past the initial gag reflex will see it’s good news in the long run.

Here’s the headline: Singular “they” is now OK. Two influential voices have given this beleaguered usage a heaping helping of respectability that, added to dictionaries’ longtime endorsement, puts singular “they” on par with using “you” in place of “thou.”

The American Dialect Society — an influential group of linguists, lexicographers and other experts — just named singular “they” their word of the year. The vote came on the heels of news that Washington Post copy desk guru Bill Walsh has dubbed singular “they” suitable for that venerable publication. And this one-two punch pretty much guarantees singular “they” a place at the table of respectable language.

“The use of singular ‘they’ builds on centuries of usage, appearing in the work of writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen,” a statement issued by the society points out.

Walsh, meanwhile, went on record saying that singular “they” is “the only sensible solution to English’s lack of a gender-neutral, third-person singular personal pronoun.”

In case you’ve missed the centuries of controversy, here’s the back story. “They” and its cousins “them” and “their” are traditionally considered plural: “He (Joe) went to the mall. She (Betty) went to the mall. They (Joe and Betty) went to the mall.”

But for centuries, people have been using “they” as a singular when they don’t know the sex of the person they’re referring to. Consider this sentence: “Everyone who attends the meeting should be sure they bring their employee badge with them.”

“Everyone” is singular. We say “Everyone is here,” not “Everyone are here.” Pronouns are supposed to agree in gender and number with their antecedents. So if the pronouns “they,” “their” and “them” are plural and “everyone” is singular, what we have here are some bona fide grammar mistakes.

So how, you wonder, can singular “they” possibly be OK? Consider the alternative: “Everyone who attends the meeting should make sure he or she brings his or her employee badge with him or her.” Awful, right? True, sometimes you can pick just one sex to represent the whole group, but that’s not always practical.

Clearly, we need a gender-neutral singular pronoun. People have known this for centuries, some going so far as to put forth suggestions. Hundreds of them.

But language is stubbornly resistant to forced change. It goes where it wants to, often simply because people were saying things wrong, causing them to slowly become right.

“While many novel gender-neutral pronouns have been proposed, ‘they’ has the advantage of already being part of the language,” said Ben Zimmer, language columnist for the Wall Street Journal and chairman of the American Dialect Society’s New Words Committee.

Of course, “he or she” remains the best choice when speaking or writing formally. I’ll continue to opt for “he or she” over “they” any time it doesn’t get too messy. But the honors just bestowed upon singular “they” make it an even better option than before.

We need a gender-neutral singular pronoun. We’ve needed one for a long time. Luckily, we now have one. And the sooner language traditionalists accept it, the better off we’ll all be.

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JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.

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